It was confusing, since Ned wasn’t likely to have heard about my plan to file for divorce through a microphone in the lobby.
After a fruitless search we trailed out of there, Don and Will and I, and into Don’s office, but I was still nervous, I couldn’t know when Ned was listening since we hadn’t found the bug. I felt conflicted about calling the police again, we couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t arrived yet, so I insisted we go analog for a while, talking to each other by writing things down on a pad of lined paper and passing it among us.
Don and Will thought Ned must have got to the local police somehow, they suggested he wouldn’t be able to do more than delay them and we should call again, get someone different on the phone. If that failed we should try another jurisdiction—the feds, probably, since none of the Mainers believed Ned’s threats about the FBI could possibly amount to much.
He was bluffing, Don said, it was highly unlikely his contacts in Anchorage could strong-arm agents in Boston.
But I still felt overheard. I couldn’t even trust my clothes, despite the fact that we’d inspected them: everything was suspect. Back in my room I stripped them all off; I stepped into the bathroom and made another 911 call—they transferred me to the sheriff’s office and I reported the kidnapping again—they said they were dispatching a car, they promised two officers would arrive within the half hour.
After I pressed the END button I stepped into the shower and let hot water beat down on my face.
What about those chips people implanted in pets, I thought—what about them? Could I have been implanted with a chip? Could I pick it out from under the skin, as I’d once seen in some otherwise forgettable movie?
Scratch, scratch, blood, and a loosened nub of metal dug out of the flesh.
IF I HAD been guided to the motel by some sense beyond the usual five, some navigational instinct having to do with magnetism or light, I wanted to know what for.
THE STATE POLICE finally got to us hours after we’d first called. It was two officers, polite and attentive in their note taking. We made them sit with us in the back office, where we felt Ned might not be able to hear, and I told them everything I could think of—about Beefy John, B.Q., Ned’s driver, his rented SUV. Black and American, was all I could say, and of course he might easily have switched it out. A couple of times I had to stop, and the cops waited patiently, their faces presenting sympathy.
I wrote down the address of our house in Anchorage, where as far as I knew Ned still lived. I had no idea where he’d been staying locally—there weren’t other motels nearby, said Don, you had to drive at least half an hour for the closest lodgings open this time of year.
“Or he could be staying with local contacts,” said Will. “That mechanic, maybe? John something . . . Pruell, maybe,” he told the police.
“Ned—my husband isn’t the type to sleep in his car,” I mumbled. “He never stays in hotels under four stars.”
The policemen looked at each other.
“That narrows it down,” said one. “He ain’t in Maine.”
I had a tin ear. My sense of humor had left with Lena.
We were surprised at how soon the cops went away again. I’d thought they would stay near, I thought there’d be a task force, something—in movies policemen walked around the house or apartment of the kidnapped child’s family, tapping phones, watching at windows. But in fact the two policemen left after their brief interview of me and an even briefer search for the concealed microphone (they found nothing). Their expressions were mild.
“We’ll do our best to find your daughter, ma’am,” said one. But I didn’t like how he said it—casually, as though it wasn’t life or death.
In the silence after the lobby doors swung shut Don said Ned had to have got to them, that their placid demeanor was unnatural. He said we should assume they weren’t going to move quickly and I had to just call the FBI. But I wasn’t so sure, I was more afraid of Ned’s capabilities than they were, so instead I went online and then I borrowed Will’s phone, distrusting my own. I hired a private investigation company based in Portland.
They’d assign a team right away, they said.
I called my parents next. My mother seemed shell-shocked, as though Lena’s abduction was a sheer unreality, and offered to help with money. Her voice was so faint that I could barely hear her.
I COULDN’T SIT in the motel, I found, waiting for someone else to look for my daughter. I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t want to talk to anyone who didn’t already know what had happened.